Expert: State can benefit from leading fight against climate change

With BC-CNS-Climate-Lawmakers-Box

By ANDREA WILSON
Cronkite News Service

PHOENIX (Tuesday, Feb. 17) _ Arizona is feeling the effects of climate change more than any other state, but it is also positioned to benefit economically by leading the nation in addressing the problem, a Nobel Prize-winning climatologist told state lawmakers Tuesday.

“If Arizona can get ahead of this problem, we could be the place where they’re deploying the first, the most, solar _ and wind energy as well _ in the nation,” said Jonathan Overpeck, co-director of the University of Arizona’s Institute for the Environment and Society. “Talk about a stimulus.”

There’s plenty of bad news for Arizona if climate change goes unchecked, Overpeck told the House Environment Committee. In the next 50 years, he said, Phoenix could see highs topping 130 degrees and drought could drain reservoirs along the Colorado River, while rising temperatures could change the state’s vegetation, especially at higher altitudes.

“We are the ones who have the most to lose if the climate scientists are right,” he said.

Still, Overpeck said he remains optimistic that Arizona and the rest of the world can make changes that would mitigate the effects of climate change.

“My children, I hope, will have an Arizona to love and cherish as much as we do,” he said.

And Overpeck said Arizona is positioned to lead the nation in renewable energy, especially solar power, which he said would strengthen the state’s economy.

“We could go from a state that is importing energy to a state that is a major exporter of energy,” he said.

The committee invited Overpeck to speak as members anticipate hearing HB 2467, sponsored by Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Gilbert, which prohibit the state Department of Environmental Quality from participating in the Western Climate Initiative. Arizona, six other states and four Canadian provinces that are part of the initiative have pledged to cut their greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 to 15 percent below 2005 levels.

Overpeck said leaving the initiative would be a step backwards, but he added that he expects national programs to replace efforts by the states.

Overpeck shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize as a member of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, serving as a lead author of one of the group’s reports on global warming.

He told lawmakers that Arizona has seen temperatures rise more than any other state, including Alaska. And he said it faces a greater challenge than most because the state is already prone to drought.

The latest predictions forecast a 20 percent reduction in the Colorado River’s flow by 2050 if climate change isn’t addressed, a problem that Overpeck said is especially crucial to Arizona because it would lose its Colorado River rights before other states in a prolonged drought.

“The stakes here are very large, not just for Tucson and Phoenix but the rest of the state,” he said.